Easy
by Ellie101
Summary: McNally and Collins spend some time thinking about past relationships and where they're headed, together. (04x09 "What I Lost" reflective)
1. Easy

A/N) I am not gonna lie, I loved Sam and Andy initially, but he's been so DUMB coupled with Nick and Andy being so freaking adorable that I just can't help myself. Mccollins all the way, baby! I'm in the middle of finishing a ridiculously long fanfic, this is just a short, fluffy as they come, 3 cheers for a "What I Lost" inspired lil fic.

"Easy"

By Ellie

I've had the steady kind of love. The love that's built on trust that you always thought was firm as standing on granite. The kind that you build from the foundation up, the entire time, sure that the bottom will hold. And when it doesn't, when the weaknesses you didn't know were there finally give under the pressure, all you can do is gather up your stuff and run away to lick your wounds.

I loved Luke. I did. But in retrospect? That damn niggling, fiery attraction to Sam Swareck was always right beneath the surface, ready to flare up and burn us both alive. So yeah, I loved Luke, but my stupid heart knew way before my head caught up that it was always about Sam.

Sam. That fucking bastard. Even when I'm burning him in effigy I'm trying not to remember how it finally felt to be with him. To hold him in my arms and meet his lips with mine and just let the world explode.

The kind of love that comes with insane attraction—the chemistry that's enough to make me lose my mind? Yeah, that's all Sam. The fact that he was my training officer just meant that the flash and flare of temper was just as often the kindle to our feelings as any of those mushy thoughts that cropped up when those deep brown bedroom eyes met mine.

Sam Swarek. A puzzle within a puzzle, a maze of contradiction and secrets wrapped up in a firm muscled body, intense emotions and true-blue heroism. How was I supposed to resist that? That's completely rhetorical. I already know the answer: I couldn't.

The grass is green, water is wet, and Sam Swarek will always hold a piece of my heart.

I've had to let him go, and if we meet eyes occasionally, it's on me to push that damnable spark down. To smother the embers of my feelings for him. He has Marlo, and as much as I'd love to hate her, they complement each other in a way that we, Andy and Sam, never did. I think I could manage to hate her if I didn't know that Sam still feels it too; that the spark is still there for both of us.

But damn if he didn't make both of our beds. I've accepted it, I've strengthened my heart against it, and I've started healing. As much as I miss him, I've found that I like the stability of life without fire. I have my friends, I have my life and I'm content. It was exciting, the sex was phenomenal but the issues, the feeling that as close as we were I'd still never truly see into Sam's heart? That _sucked._

It sucked and it was _exhausting._

I spent half our relationship trying to figure out if we were both on the same page, trying to understand why Sam constantly pushed me away, kept parts of himself hidden from me. And I began to forget what it's like to love without complication. Without self-imposed limits that we both keep erecting just to knock down.

Because what I felt for Sam was love. Absolutely. But I'm beginning to think that there's a better way to love. A better way to be in love, a better way to receive it. I don't think love is supposed to be so damn _hard, _always fighting, clawing, for one step forward and three steps back.

I didn't even realize that most of my happiness was because of Nick. I wasn't looking for him. He was with Gail, I was strung up on Sam. We were friends. I don't know when the friendship started to change. I don't know when he moved from my good pal Nick, to my best friend. To the first person I wanted to talk to in the morning and the last at night.

It was such a gradual change. So effortless. I know that we started to get closer undercover. God knows, you can't help but bond in that kind of pressure. Living in a tiny apartment, lying your ass off and praying that you can fool the criminals into believing that you're one of them. Staying awake for hours because it's your job to know the exact moment some new scumbag has made a drop.

Pretending to be in love in front of said scumbags. Joking, laughing, knowing that we are all that each other had. It's like that stupid game they make you do in school—you close your eyes and fall back, and your teammates are supposed to catch you. I never doubted that Nick would catch me.

And I knew that he felt the exact same way.

There's incredible power in that. I thought that what I'd built with Luke was on a solid foundation. The difference between that and how I feel for Nick is like comparing one of those earthquake-proof buildings they put up in San Francisco to a cottage made of sticks.

When we came back from UC, our closeness took a hit. Gail was waiting to sock him in the face, literally, and Sam was there with Marlo. My figurative sock in the face. We went from being an island, from being the Nick and Andy show, straight back to the unbearably awkward and painful Andy and Sam—days of our lives drama.

Not that Nick was lacking any drama by hitching his wagon to Gail's. As tumultuous and insane as my relationship with Sam was, Gail is in possession of her own brand of emotional distance issues. But Nick just kept plugging away. Gotta admire that in a man. Maybe it's the soldier in him—nothing less than victory, even against interminable odds.

In any case, he and Gail breaking up threw me. I was finally starting to feel whole again after my second, third, shit, _final_ trial by fire with Sam. Suddenly my breakup buddy is the one that's taken the hit. I tried to cheer him up, I tried to get him to talk about it. When that didn't work, I went with him to get drunk. That worked just dandy. But instead of spewing vitriol about ice-for-blood Peck, or telling me about the break up, we ended up playing silly games and reliving our time under cover.

He ended up crashing on my couch and when I woke up with my head pounding I found him in the kitchen making omelets, a glass of water and two Asprin already sitting on the counter for me. Nick, the homemaker. A side that I got to see plenty of undercover, and one that I was especially thankful for while mini elephants were tapdancing on my skull.

He flipped the omelet onto a plate and smiled at me. Pure Nick with a side of dimples. "Glad you're up sleeping beauty. Breakfast's ready."

And I remember thinking to myself how glad I was that Nick and I were friends. How much better my life felt without the complications of Sam. Without our "love" setting off flash fires everywhere we went.

As I tossed back those Asprin I tried to remember the last time I had felt so happy. I had great friends, a job I loved, a freshly cooked breakfast, and my best friend, Nick.

* * *

It felt natural to partner with Nick. Always did, but now it's weird if I look to my left or right and it's not him I feel a slight pang. That nagging feeling that I left something at home. Easy enough to shrug it off and do my job, but sometimes it surprises me that it's there at all. Just a testament to how amazing Nick is, I guess. I've never had a friend that understands me the way he does. And the best part is that I know, deep-down-to-the-bone _know_ that he feels that same way about me.

That's why it was so shocking, so amazingly surreal when we were sitting in the squad car and he told me that I just keep getting more and more magical. He said it with the kind of flat honesty that he would use in one of his reports. He looked me in the eye and smiled, ruefully, barely enough to make those dimples of his show up. Crazy, he said.

Yeah, me and Nick? Definitely crazy. He just broke up with Gail. He and I are... Well. We're Andy and Nick. Compadres. Amigos. Jesus, where is all of this Spanish coming from?

If Nick were in my head right now, he'd make a crack about how it's just another sign that I need a burrito. That's kind of the funny thing. I can actually _hear _him. I can picture exactly how he'd look, that he would undoubtedly accompany the comment with a friendly nudge or a loose arm around my neck.

I can picture him in my head. Doesn't that just mean that he's already there?

Oh, boy. I guess I can kiss my simple single life goodbye. Things are about to get all kinds of complicated.

He looks into my eyes, smiles and tells me that he'll wait for me. Wait for me to think, wait for me to decide. There's no pressure here. This is _Nick_. The same guy who makes me breakfast, guards my back and jokes with me. One day when I was feeling particularly low about Sam and the lovely Marlo he took me to an arcade and we played that stupid bop-it game where the groundhogs pop up and you smash them in the head with a padded mallet. We went around indulging our inner kid, winning tickets and snickering whenever the younger kids would eyeball us, wondering what two grown-ass adults are doing playing duckhunter.

At the end of the night he took all of our tickets and picked out a "prize" for us. Some plastic bugs for us to plant in the lockers at work, a bagful of gummy worms and a stuffed raccoon. I busted out laughing when he handed it to me with that playful twinkle in his eye.

He knows I have a history with raccoons. On my second week of working the mean streets of Toronto, I was called to investigate a disturbance behind someone's residence. There had been a string of robberies around that neighborhood and the homeowners were concerned that a prowler might be in their alley.

After minutes of my heartbeat working up and into my throat I heard a loud scuffle by a dumpster and drew my gun, requesting that the perp come out with their hands up.

A family of raccoons ran out and almost gave me a heart attack. I could actually feel my finger squeezing down just as their beady eyes stared at me with curiosity and alarm before scampering off.

Nick just couldn't let me live it down. I still had the stuffed animal sitting on my dresser. Couldn't bring myself to get rid of it even though I knew that Nick wouldn't have been offended if I had.

I'm ready for bed, sitting in my pajamas and staring at the stuffed animal that's sitting in the corner and trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do.

This is NICK. He and Gail just broke up, he's my best friend. I don't want to lose him. I can feel my lips stretch into a smile as I recall his calm sincerity as he assures me that he'll wait. And I know Nick. I trust him completely. He doesn't say anything that he doesn't mean. He's honest to a fault, a trait we have in common. He'll wait for me to figure this out. No hot and cold. No finding another girlfriend while I try and decide.

It's late and I need to sleep. I've got work in the morning. I glance at the stuffed raccoon and snatch it quickly. I'm not going to _cuddle _it or anything. I mean, I'm a girl but I'm not 12. I set it on the pillow next to me and turn out the light. It's only as I'm drifting off that I realize that it smells like Nick's soap.

* * *

We found Christian and I'm finally feeling the bone-deep terror and crushing guilt begin to ebb away after seeing Diaz cuddling his son. And _Jesus_ if the kidnapping wasn't bad enough! Chris now has to deal with the fact that Christian isn't his biological son. I feel for him. And it's just one more part of the exhaustion that's draping over me. I am so incredibly glad that this awful day is over.

I'm trudging my way to my door when I see Nick leaning against the wall. He smiles at me and I can feel it like a hug. A balm for this horrible day. He's been shoring me up from the moment that he showed up at that park. Watching him with Christian just cemented what I've known about him from the beginning. He is a good man. Generous, kind, patient. It would take a stronger woman than me not to melt at his easy confidence with Christian.

Even after I started to tell him that I thought it was a bad idea for us to get involved-that I'd been backwards and forwards with it and no matter how I looked at it, us as a couple was going to cause some drama. Drama is something I thought I was well rid of. And the biggest fear that I had, the biggest reason that I just couldn't quite let myself imagine Nick in my life in a more romantic way: (And it's not that I haven't had thoughts, I mean, the man is gorgeous and I'm only human.) it's that I'm _terrified_ that we'll screw it up. We'll screw up the Andy and Nick show and that'll be it. I'd rather have him in my life, stably irrevocably _IN_ my life than take a risk and lose him for good.

Even after I started my speech, even though he knew where it was going he still had my back all day. His support never wavered. His strength solidly backing up my own, even if all we could do was answer the tip lines all day. And now here he is. Against my door. That cute little boy smile of his soothing me even after the world's most awful day.

And I can practically hear the little click in my heart. Something snapping into place so quietly that I barely notice the change until after he's already told me that I'm worth it. That he's still going to wait because I'm what he wants. He smiles again, starts to walk off and halts, his hand in his pocket.

He turns back with my phone in is hand and suddenly the click in my heart isn't quiet. It isn't subtle. It's _there_ beating just a touch faster than normal. And I realize that it's _Nick._ It's NICK and it's the simplest of things, the easiest move to stretch up and cup his cheek in my hand as my lips brush up against his.

And we're kissing, and he's holding me and it's not fire I feel, but a deep burn.

A steady heat. Unwavering and comforting. Just like Nick. And we're in my apartment making a mess as we both try and free ourselves from unnecessary clothes. I don't want clothes I want _skin._ I want the heat of his body against my own. I want _Nick._

And as we smile between druggingly sweet kisses I look into his eyes and I realize that I may have found the best kind of love after all.

Because as we touch, and explore and kiss I realize that the biggest difference between what I feel for Nick and what I felt for Sam is that Nick and I are on the same page. We're in this together, as equals. And god, I want Nick with an intensity that's hard to believe. My buddy Nick has become as essential to me as air. As light.

And it's so easy.


	2. Following Orders

A/N) So everyone that gave me such positive feedback for "Easy" thank you very much! I'm happy to contribute to the McCollins love out there. This is Nick's POV and I haven't watched the new episode yet so it doesn't reflect that, but I figured he should have his own chapter. I'm tacking this onto Easy because I'm a lazy B. :) Cheers!

"Following Orders"

By Ellie

I never thought of myself as a masochist. It's true that I've gone from being a soldier into law enforcement. True that I've seen some fucked up things, lost some friends. Lost my parents far too soon. Even with all of that I never really thought that I was into pain. Not just into it, but that I actually sought it out. That some part of me goes looking for it.

Kinda moronic of me not to decode that little piece of my psyche when I've been involved with Gail Peck for over a year. And that's not including our incredibly rocky past engagement. Gail looks like a Christmas tree angel. All blonde hair, blue eyes, red lips. Beautiful. Of course once you get to know her the idea of her resembling anything remotely close to an angel is ludicrous.

Not unless you imagine angels to be full of piss and vinegar, biting scorn and razor-blade instincts. She looks all soft and she usually smells like some darkly exotic perfume. Then she lasers those baby blues onto you and goes straight for the jugular. I used to think that her ice princess thing was an act. That she built up that brassy attitude to make up for her delicate looks. She grew up blue. Her mom, her brother. I figured that getting tough was the only option.

She has her moments of softness. Of vulnerability. And since those moments are so rare, so precious, I always knew that I wanted to be the guy that got see that. The guy that got to be there.

And right there, _that_ is why I'm a fucking masochist.

Gail Peck is sarcastic, rude, inconsiderate. Loving, caring, and heroic. But her good qualities are usually overshadowed by the fact that she genuinely _enjoys_ being a bitch. She revels in it the same way that Price loves being weird, and overly chatty.

Those sweet soft moments where her eyes lose that icy sheen and she's looking at you like you _matter_ and her mouth is sweet against yours? Yeah, those are the aberrations. The exceptions that prove the rule. Because Gail isn't sweet. She isn't thoughtful. She is who she is, and god help you if you're searching for sugar beneath the sour. 'Cause you aren't about to find it.

It's not hard to see that she cares, that deep down her emotions are softer. But trying to get to that part of her is like taking a swim in a pool full of razorblades and then getting rained on with lemon juice.

So I waited. I figured if I kept at it, kept trying to prove to her that I was always going to be there no matter how many hoops she had me jumping through, that maybe she'd let up a little. That the ice princess would defrost.

The wait ended the moment I heard Gail admit that she'd cheated on me. After everything, all that we had been through, that she could cheat on me just about destroyed me. She may have her bitchy moments, but no one ever said that Gail isn't loyal.

Then again, she always did find new and difficult ways to test me. It's just taken me this long to realize that I'm done. That I've been throwing myself against the same jagged barrier over and over again, and even with my apparent love of the pain, I'm just fucking _done._

We sat in my truck and talked. Ended. And she accused me of having a thing for McNally. Accused me of lying to both her and myself. And that was the moment that I realized the true depths of my own idiocy. Because Gail was right. I have a thing for Andy.

And if people accused me of being a masochist for dating Gail then they had _no fucking idea_ how much worse off I am carrying a torch for McNally. Not just because it's Andy—warm, funny, caring Andy—but because McNally and Swareck have been the Romeo and Juliet of 15 division. Their love has spanned years, moved mountains, made us all simultaneously dream of shoving Swareck down a deep shaft. (Or maybe that's just me.)

And Andy has been dealing with the fallout from her feelings for Swareck from the moment I met her. I offered to be her "breakup buddy" because I had some small understanding of her pain, after all, I was dating Gail Peck, causer of pain, drama, and indigestion via misguided attempts at cooking. So, like the oblivious chump that I am, I started the process of getting closer to Andy.

And the more I got to know her, the more I craved to learn. Here I was, with Gail, catching occasional glimpses of tender feelings masked beneath sarcasm and depreciating humor—usually focused at me. Then there's Andy, truthful, funny, half-glass-full Andy. The fact that she's an amazing cop and gorgeous and fun didn't bother me at first. It wasn't until I found myself comparing my girlfriend to my new buddy that I realized that I was in deep water.

And sinking fast.

* * *

Then there was under cover. Six months of Andy. Six months of living in the same tin-can apartment, staying up late, working together, having each others backs.

There's a camaraderie that develops in war times. It's strong, it's deep and it's indelible. I didn't expect to have that kind of bond from working as a cop. It's not that I don't get on with the others from 15. I do. They're great and I'd take a bullet for any of them because it's my job and we're all on the same side. But what happened with Andy under cover goes deeper than that.

She gets this look when she's playful. She scrunches her nose a tiny bit and one of her eyebrows wings up. And every time I see that face I know she's about to pull something. She punked me epically one night by spraying the sheets with this honeysuckle perfume that I told her makes me sneeze. It was her turn for the bed but she'd lost a bet and her penalty was to couch-surf.

Trying to go to sleep that night was hell. That cloying sweet smell kept settling in my nose and sending me into sneezing fits. Andy finally took pity on me around 2 am and tossed me clean sheets. To this day, I can't smell honeysuckle without remembering that.

But that's Andy. She's fierce and devoted and full of fun. She doesn't just dish it out, she can take it too. I remember I hid all of her bath stuff once. You know, all the girl crap that she keeps in there. I had it on the Authority of Gail that messing with a girl's fruity body soap is sacrosanct.

My prank ended up backfiring. Andy just took the opportunity to use my bath stuff and all day she smelled like irish spring and old spice. I should've known that I was starting to fall for her when later that night I started having extremely inventive dreams involving me, Andy and a waterfall. Something about a chick smelling like you I guess, just brings out the inner caveman.

And sometimes we fought, once it was because I kept singing under my breath and she was trying to write in her under cover diary. I didn't even know I was doing it, but I guess I kept repeating the same lines over and over until she cracked and started pummeling me with a couch pillow. And we both laughed and I turned on the radio and it was over.

But there were other times, times when we'd just get on each others nerves, or one of us was being boneheaded. Those were the times when we'd stomp around the apartment and glare at each other. Andy doesn't hold grudges but she definitely has a temper. And me? I can get mad, but I always try and control my emotions. I know what I'm capable of, I know the strengths of my own body and I try to own that.

The first time she got pissed at me, it was during the third or fourth hour of her pouting and sending me angry glances that I finally broke down and tossed her the candy bar I'd bought for her at the gas station earlier.

She hitched one of her eyebrows up and pinned me with a look. "So, since I'm a girl, you think you can toss me some chocolate and I'll stop being mad at you?"

I grinned winningly, "No, but since you're a girl, I'm tossing some chocolate and hoping that you'll take pity on me. I can't take the heated stares anymore, I thought my days of walking through mines were done when I left Afghanistan."

Her gaze thawed slightly as she began unwrapping the Hershey bar. "You're not getting out of this by invoking Patriotism. You were an ass."

I pouted at her, "But I'm an ass with _chocolate_. Besides, I won't be able to sleep tonight if you're still mad at me."

She smirked, "Why should _I_ care?"

"Because Oprah says that couples should never go to bed angry. Our cover could be blown! Nick the drug distributing boyfriend might break down and cry because of Andy the kleptomaniac girlfriend and then all of the drug users will point fingers and laugh."

Andy fought it, but eventually started to grin. And just like that, our fight was over. As simple as a conversation and a dollar fifty nine piece of candy.

"You know, one day, when we get back to 15, I'm going to get you an Afghanistan jar and every time you mention it I'm going to make you pony-up."

I grinned, "Sounds good. You willing to get a Sam Swareck jar? I feel like this could be a golden opportunity for us to earn some money off each other."

A pillow flew at me and I dodged, laughing.

* * *

I don't know how I didn't realize it sooner. I knew we were close. Like, best friend close. A moniker I haven't used since the grade school days when it slipped so easily off the tongue. I knew that I liked being around her, talking to her, laughing with her. And when I was partnered with Chloe and I told her that I wasn't part of the inner sanctum, I wasn't lying. They had been brought up together, bonded the same way I had with my soldier in arms. You can't fight that kind of closeness so I never tried. But Chloe just leveled me with her gaze and told me that I'd been part of a huge undercover operation with Andy.

And if there is a heart of 15 division, it's Andy.

She gave me this knowing look after I told her about dubbing the movies to keep ourselves awake. Looking back it almost seems like Andy and I were the last to know that we were moving towards something more than friendship.

* * *

Now I'm at her door, and I've given her a solid week to think about my confession. I've caught her smiling at me a few times and it's given me hope. You see, I know all of Andy's smiles. I knew the smile she uses when she's hurting. The smile she uses when she's incredulous, when she's having fun. This new smile is something different. Part wistful, part pleased. And the fact that it's directed at me? Well, it's enough for me to know that there's a part of her that has feelings for me. And that's enough for me to keep on this campaign. To keep waiting for her to decide whether she and I are a worthwhile risk. Because I know that we are. I can feel it.

Now it's up to her.

And I'm handing over her phone and she's stepping up and kissing me. And it's not the first time we've kissed. I've kissed her so many times under cover, but never as myself. Never without the distancing measure that UC gave us. And we're in her apartment and knocking things over. And laughing because doesn't it figure that we're finally doing this and we're going to totally destroy her apartment in the process?

There's a point where I'm looking down at her, and she's so beautiful and then we're kissing and I can feel her hand smoothing along my chest before she curls her fingers against my bicep and pushes her hips against me. It's electric. And I nuzzle her neck and breathe her in as she plants kisses along my chest. And I'm smelling vanilla and citrus and it's enough to make me pull back and look into her eyes.

"What happened to the honeysuckle?"

And she's grinning at me and hitching her leg higher on my hip, lining us up just right, practically making my eyes cross when she answers, "I stopped wearing it after this guy couldn't stop sneezing. Figured I'd find something that evokes a more positive response."

I lift her hips up and let myself press into her, watching her head fall back and her throat work against the sensation.

"And how's this response working for you?" I'm grinning at her when she grabs my head between her hands and drags me down to her lips as she mumbles,

"Shut up and kiss me, Collins."

What can I say? I'm a man who knows how to follow orders.


End file.
